Review: SMALL MOUTH SOUNDS Meticulously Recaptures the Meaning of Retreats and Self-Improvement Workshops

Small Mouth Sounds/by Bess Wohl/directed by Rachel Chavkin/The Broad Stage, Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center/through January 28

If you have ever gone on retreat or participated in a silent workshop like EST, the detail of Small Mouth Sounds will be of particular interest. If you have not, not to worry. The moment to moment dramedy makes total sense and is most definitely worth your time and money. Bess Wohl who wrote the successful Barcelona a couple of years back, has done it again. Small Mouth Sounds is at the core about people, the pain they experience and the efforts they make to deal with it. Now onstage for a mere three weeks at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica, Small Mouth Sounds doesn't say a heck of a lot, yet simultaneously says it all.

Watching the six actors play off each other is one of the best features of this play. Each creates a character with a different problem. Some issues we recognize right away, others don't become obvious until later in the 110 minute piece performed without an intermission. Take Judy and Joan, for example. Judy (Charene Snow) and Joan (Socorro Santiago) are lesbian lovers. Judy has cancer and inhales pot to ease her pain. A big issue is her relationship with Joan who takes the illness as seriously as Judy does. It affects her deeply; Judy is not the only one who is suffering. When the participants write down their intention for the seminar, they are supposed to keep it private. Judy by accident reads Joan's slip of paper and becomes agitated and upset, causing a brief rift between the two. Rodney (Edward Chin-Lyn), on the other hand, a yoga instructor, has a handsome face and beautiful body; on the outside, he appears perfect. What problem could be possibly be experiencing? We don't find out until later, when he has a brief sexual fling with Alicia (Brenna Palughi) a sensitive girl who is pained over her boyfriend's lack of sexual interest in her. Then there's Ned (Ben Beckley) who wears a hat to cover up the wounds on his head from a horrible accident. He delivers the only monlogue (picture below), about his sensitive condition and how he is trying to adapt to the world around him. What's it all about, this struggling? We live in an uncaring world and keep going forward trying to figure out our true purpose. Last but not least there's Jan (Connor Barrett) who, in spite of his friendliness, maintains complete silence. We don't know why until the very end of the play.

The piece is structured into sessions with a teacher (Orville Mendoza) -we only hear his voice, and within the sleeping area as participants bed down for the evening, trying to maintain some privacy and at a nearby lake, where skinny dipping appeals to some while repelling others. Private moments, being embarrassed about taking off one's clothes in front of others for example, are an actor's dream as they get to express how they feel via body language and by laughing, or letting out gasps, sighs or other short sounds. They must be thoroughly imaginative.

Under Rachel Chavkin's quiet direction, the entire ensemble give wonderful performances, digging deep inside themselves and focusing on how they really feel when faced with the possibility of change at any given moment. There is a reference to the ocean that opens and closes the play. The vast ocean can very well overwhelm. A metaphor closes with life referred to as a sinking ship. Pain has no end and one either survives or gives in. It's a lesson we all learn, and in the play the word 'ocean' is uttered by Jan who is still grappling to understand its meaning when the retreat is over. There are no foolproof solutions to life's questions; the search goes on...

Wohl's writing is never boring. She is realistic about pacing and allows the actors the proper time for exploration and execution of their actions. Chavkin follows Wohl's script to the letter. This is a real team effort between writer, director and actors, and provides a rewarding theatrical experience that must be seen. You may not learn anything new, but you will certainly think and enjoyably relate.

full nudity...recommended for mature teenagers and above...

www.thebroadstage.org

(photo credit: Ben Gibbs)

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